Here at last

Have you ever felt that something will completely change your life before it happened?  I mean of course besides the obvious events of marriage, birth, and death.  I am feeling that way now.   This is a moment that has been building up with anticipation for four years since I was in Belfast.  Smitten by World Cup fever and the chance to go to Africa, I set out with reckless abandon to make it happen.

And here I am two days before departure, two days before I board a 17 hour flight to Johannesburg and a place that seems like a dream.  I tell people of my plans and they tell me they're jealous.  And why wouldn't they be?  It's the World Cup after all!  There's sure to be a lot of fun sprinkled with exotic foods and the kind of stories you tell until the day you die.  I'm here for all that.  I plan to take crazy photos, cheer until I am hoarse, and even acquire and play my very own vuvuzela!  Much fun will be had.

But that's not all this trip is about.  Amid the hysteria and the grandiose stadiums, there is another South Africa -- a South Africa of AIDS and poverty and reconciliation.  A big part of this trip will be experiencing and learning from these things.  I am planning to encounter various ministries throughout both South Africa and Malawi.  I'm not sure what I expect.  I don't expect to be shocked.  I've seen  the aftermath of serious conflicts in both Sarajevo and Belfast; I've seen poverty along the border of the Dominican.  No, there is something else...

I hope to be spoken to -- to encounter the living God.  I don't really know what that means.  I have ideas of course, but if I've learned anything in life, it's that God seldom works the way you want him to.  That's one of the things I love about the Chronicles of Narnia.  Aslan is a wild lion and he never appears as soon or as often as you want him to; he of course never does things the same way twice.  What am I looking for?  I feel like my life is kind of like a puzzle.  I have ideas about how it is all going to come together, but I can't quite make the pieces fit. I don't expect to solve the puzzle, but to maybe fit a few more pieces together.

Anyways, I plan to take lots of pictures and to blog about this crazy adventure, so I hope you can join me for the ride!